At the Commerce Committee meeting on Tuesday 26 March they said a lot, but nothing of substance.
On the one hand, MPs were informed about the effects of green taxation and the taxes to come, on the other hand they were not informed about when the relevant bills will be submitted to the Parliament nor about any compensatory measures.
Speaking to ThemaOnline the MP of AKEL and member of the Energy Committee Voulis, Kostas Kostas, said a representative of the Department of the Environment told the Commission that citizens would also be asked to pay a waste disposal tax. But not even for this issue were they informed of the amount of the tax and when it will start being imposed.
As he explained, “a representative of the Ministry of Finance said that the European Union identified weaknesses in the implementation of projects that are in the Recovery and Resilience Plan submitted by the previous Government and various corrections were made by the existing Government. One of them is that while they gave us money for waste management and the creation of new facilities, in the end instead of sorting, we buried the garbage in the Integrated Waste Management Facility (OEDA) of Pentakomo, and today the citizen is asked to pay.”
Other taxes and… countervailing measures
He also spoke of scandals and delays that today lead the citizen to pay a new green tax on water, hotels, airplanes, ships, motor fuels, fuels needed by industries to operate, waste management and burial garbage.
As far as the compensatory measures are concerned, he said that although there will be support for vulnerable groups according to the Government, on the other hand “a household of two people who receive 800 euros each is also a vulnerable group and rent' and wondered how they would be able to cope with extra charges.
Fuel hikes…before subsidy ends
The AKEL member of parliament indicated that increases have already been introduced in the last period at gas stations essentially with the aim of absorbing the increases that will come and possibly taking advantage of the consecutive three days. “For years we have been talking about unfair competition at gas stations, while an important problem remains the complete lack of price control at gas stations. Normally they would have to check how much stock they have at the stations from the previous load and come up with an average with the new price. What happens is that as soon as the ship touches the port with the new cargo, the increases also come in”, said Kostas Kostas.
A call not to proceed with new taxes
From the side of, speaking on ThemaOnline the Chairman of the Energy Committee and MP of DISY Kyriakos Hatzigiannis called on the Government to continue the measures in force today and not proceed with the imposition of any new taxes. “They must first provide answers for the delays in the implementation of projects and at the same time find solutions to the problems. Solutions in the management of garbage, in the weaning off of fuel oil, in the floating unit for natural gas etc”, emphasized Kyriakos Hatzigiannis.
He also indicated that the Government is not able to implement the projects that are in the Plan of Recovery and Resilience and the EU utilizes measurable statistics of its implementation while the Government moves around and for this they impose taxes on us.
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